TIDEPOOLING FITZGERALD MARINE RESERVE

Looks like I missed a week there. Sacrilege. Today I had my first successful tidepooling venture in a while. This time I tried out Fitzgerald Marine Reserve near Half Moon Bay, which is well known for its tidepools, but which I’ve been avoiding for fear of being told not to remove animals from the pools (I only remove them to small containers to photograph, then return them). As it turned out, I only had to contend with strange looks from other visitors. While your casual tidepooler sticks to solid ground, leans over a pool, and peers in from waist level, I adopt a sort of crab-like posture and creep along the rocks with my nose right about the water’s surface. Am I a poacher? A scientist? No, my good man, merely a freak.

The tide wasn’t amazing (-1.4 or so, and I was there an hour before so it wasn’t even that), and I didn’t see large numbers of anything other than turban tops, gulls, and harbor seals, but I did make some new friends.

Acanthodoris lutea, 3 cm

Acanthodoris lutea! A new one! You gotta love those long rhinophores on species in Acanthodoris. They’re like the elves of the nudibranch world. Bright orange color, gold flecking, chunky papillae, white, feathery gills, truly a beautiful little beast. But goddamn it, I didn’t smell the thing. I’d heard there was a nudibranch that smells strongly of sandalwood, and in fact I heard it from the guy that first told me about this place. This is the one, and I didn’t smell it. Curses.

Rostanga pulchra, 1 cm

Not entirely sure about the ID, since I didn’t get any quality photos and I didn’t have a guide out there with me, but it looks an awful lot like this, so why not. Found in a pool lined with urchins.

Sunflower sea star (Pycnopodia helianthoides)

Not new, and not a nudibranch, but such a cool animal. This thing was at least a foot in diameter, if not a little more. I haven’t seen one in the wild for about a year and some change, so this was a pleasure.

All in all, abundances were low. Maybe the tide wasn’t low enough, maybe late afternoon isn’t the best time to look, I don’t really know. The only other species I saw was Triopha maculata, and I only saw a couple.